Sugar Is Sour

October 28, 1985

JEFF KUNERTH'S Oct. 7 article headlined ''Sour effects of sugar on kids is not yet a matter of fact,'' which quotes researchers to the effect that sugar doesn't give parents the blues, is typical of the kind of psychological research that produces much nose but little sense.

The idea that sugar causes behavioral changes among children is called a ''myth'' by James Hadley, spokesman for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda, Md. He says, ''There are a lot of parents who will tell you that when they give children sugar there is definitely an effect, but there has been no scientific link.''

My wife and I have raised more than a hundred foster children and supervised parents who were raising another thousand children. I do not know a single one of those parents who didn't hate Halloween, birthday parties and other sugar days. In fact, I do not know anyone who works and lives with special children who does not know that sugar is terrible.

There are plenty of studies, carefully done, that substantiate the common-sense observations of parents and professionals.

Somehow a few men inspecting a few ordinary children in an artificial academic environment can gain credence and claim to have the only ''scientific'' data.

Anyone who doesn't think sugar is poison to special kids ought to be sentenced to a weekend with a dozen hyper children who have all the candy they want.

Not all science is done in a laboratory. Observations by parents carry more weight with me than an experiment for a few hours in a college lab. Sugar is sour.